


Where We Left Off

by tabru



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drama, Drama & Romance, Established Relationship, M/M, Reunions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 07:29:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17762462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabru/pseuds/tabru
Summary: The love Glorfindel and Gildor have for one another cannot die, even when one of them does.The calm before the Fall of Gondolin and a happy reunion centuries later.





	Where We Left Off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keiliss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keiliss/gifts).



_**Where We Left Off** _

_The Year 510 of the First Age_  
_Gondolin, Beleriand_

The final days and nights of Gondolin were calm and quiet, and on this particular night, the stars were shining undimmed in the great black sky above. And below, in Turgon’s hidden city, the people sang songs of praise to the Valar and gazed up at the wonders of Varda, ignorant of the knife’s edge upon which their lives now rested. For in those last few days before Gondolin’s sudden and inescapable end, none could have predicted the apocalypse a single dawn could bring.

In a large house near to the king’s palace, Gildor Inglorion lay half-asleep in bed, waiting for his husband to return home. His golden hair was fanned out onto the pillows and his naked body tangled in silken sheets. He had intended to stay awake until Glorfindel returned, but the sweet night air and the distant songs of the people had lulled him into a waking dream, too pleasant to resist. For in that dream, he was home in Valinor, in the mountains of his grandfather’s house, a time a place when he was young and free and unafraid.

He only stirred from that dream when he felt the bed move beside him, and he opened an eye to see Glorfindel sitting upon the edge of it, undressing himself for the evening. Gildor placed a hand on Glorfindel’s back, and his husband turned towards him, smiling.

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes,” Gildor said, returning the smile. “And I’m glad you did. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” Glorfindel said, climbing all the way onto the bed and leaning down to kiss Gildor, who reached up to pull Glorfindel even closer to him. “Princess Idril kept me longer than planned,” he added when at last the kiss ended.

“Oh?” Gildor said, propping himself up on one elbow and raising a suggestive eyebrow at his husband. “Were she not your niece, I might become jealous. So, tell me,” Gildor continued, bringing a leg out from beneath the coverlet and nudging Glorfindel with it. “What was so pressing that our princess thought to keep you from me half the night?”

Glorfindel went oddly silent at that, which was not at all the reaction Gildor had expected. Instead of speaking, Glorfindel began to idly trace his fingers along the curve of Gildor’s calf muscles, the back of his knee, up his thigh…

Gildor shivered in delight at the touch, but frowned when his husband remained quiet.

“Glorfindel? What is it?”

Glorfindel looked away, out the open window, away towards the encircling mountains that hid them from the rest of Middle-earth. Gildor thought perhaps he wouldn’t answer, but at last he said: “You must not repeat to anyone what I say.”

Gildor sat all the way up, thoughts of intimacy vanishing in the face of Glorfindel’s grave words, his somber tone. “Something has happened.”

“No,” Glorfindel said, looking back down at his husband and smiling weakly. “Nothing yet, at least.”

“Tell me,” Gildor insisted, and Glorfindel sighed, moving to lie beside him on the bed. He pushed his fingers through Gildor’s golden hair distractedly, his face tightening with a fear Gildor wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“The people cannot know, lest it cause a panic.”

“What has happened?” Gildor asked, pressing himself closer to his husband. “What is going to happen?”

“The princess has asked me to help her in a particular…endeavor. One that not even the king can know about.”

Gildor drew back slightly in alarm. “Glorfindel,” he said, his voice barely whisper, as though afraid someone may overhear, “you’re not…you’re not doing something treasonous, are you?”

“No,” Glorfindel said quickly, but then added a bit more cautiously: “At least, that’s not how I see it.”

“And how would the _king_ see it?” Gildor asked. When Glorfindel did not immediately answer, he continued: “Tell me what you’re doing. You know your secrets are safe with me. Tell me. Let me share the risk with you, whatever it is.”

Glorfindel smiled down at him and kissed him again, lightly this time, but with a tenderness that always made Gildor weak with love for him. Fighting the temptation to allow Glorfindel to distract him with love-making, Gildor reluctantly pulled away, leveling a stern glare at his husband. “Tell me,” he repeated.

“I don’t know where to begin exactly,” Glorfindel said, plucking at a thread in the bed sheet. “It is Idril’s belief—and mine as well—that Gondolin is doomed to fall.”

Gildor stared at Glorfindel for a long moment, taking in his words, but when Glorfindel did not continue, he pressed: “What has brought about this sudden belief?”

“It is not exactly…sudden,” said Glorfindel, his voice guilty. “We were warned a decade ago when Lord Tuor first arrived in the city. He was not, as we told the people, some lost mortal come to seek shelter with us, but rather a messenger from Ulmo himself, and his message was not a pleasant one.

“He warned us to evacuate the city before Morgoth brings doom upon us all,” Glorfindel continued, at last bringing himself to meet Gildor’s astonished gaze. “But King Turgon refuses to leave.”

“Does the king doubt the word of Ulmo?” Gildor asked, amazed.

“No,” Glorfindel replied. “But he does not believe it necessary to leave in order to protect us from Morgoth. He cannot bring himself to abandon the city, and so instead he has doubled—nay, tripled every effort to keep Gondolin hidden from the outside world. This is all well and good, but…” he trailed off, looking down again at the bed.

“But the princess disagrees?” Gildor coaxed, once more moving closer to his husband.

Glorfindel nodded. “As do I. And so she began a secret project, one that not even her husband knows about. One that the king _cannot_ know about. And I have been assisting her.”

“What is it?”

“A way out,” Glorfindel said. “A secret way, so that if we are ever besieged by Angband, our people will have a means of escape through the mountains. I will tell you where it is,” he added, his voice quickening, and he took Gildor’s hands in his own, “so that you will know where to go when the time comes. And you must go, whether or not I am with you, you must go.”

“No,” Gildor said, for even as his mind reeled with these new revelations, one thing was clear: “I will not go unless you are at my side. Do you understand? Do not force me to walk that path without you. I will not abandon the city if you still remain here.”

“Gildor—”

“Promise me you will leave with me,” Gildor said, his voice harsher than he meant it to be as he squeezed Glorfindel’s hands tightly. “Promise you will not leave my side.”

Glorfindel looked down at their entwined fingers, his knuckles nearly white as he gripped Gildor’s hands tightly. “I…promise.” Then he added: “Why must you always be so stubborn?”

“Why must you always be such a fool?” Gildor countered. “Did you really think I would run away without you?”

“I am a fool,” Glorfindel agreed, his voice sad, “for not telling you sooner.”

“And so why tell me now, foolish lover of mine?”

“Because I fear this doom will be upon us sooner rather than later. My heart forebodes it.”

Gildor gently pulled his hands away and laid back down upon the bed, letting his dread wash over him like waves, a tide of fear that he slowly worked to push away until at last his mind was clear. Eventually, he looked back over at Glorfindel who had not moved, but was instead staring silently at his husband with trepidation.

“Can you forgive me?” Glorfindel asked. “For keeping this from you?”

In answer, Gildor reached up to tug Glorfindel down beside him. “Yes,” he whispered in his ear. “I forgive you. But what will you do to make amends?”

Glorfindel raised an eyebrow, then a slow smile spread across his lovely face, chasing some of the worry from his bright eyes. “I can do this…” he offered, straddling Gildor suddenly, and moving his nimble fingers down his lover’s chest, massaging the skin there, traveling ever further down, down towards his abdomen, his groin.

Gildor gasped as Glorfindel began to stroke him, slowly at first, and then with ever quickening motions.

“Do you love me?” Glorfindel asked, his voice thick with desire as he lay fully on top of Gildor, rubbing up against him and nibbling at his neck.

“You’re in my bed, aren’t you?” Gildor laughed, even as he trembled with a sudden need to have Glorfindel inside of him.

“But do you love me, truly?”

“You know I do,” Gildor said, scraping his fingers gently along Glorfindel’s scalp, down the back of his neck and the elegant curve of his spine, towards his buttocks. “I’ve loved you ere Sun and Moon were in the sky. My love for you was born in the light of the Two Trees, and it has never dimmed.”

“Tell me again,” Glorfindel said, groaning as Gildor’s hands moved to massage his inner thighs.

“I love you,” Gildor said, but the last word came out as a gasp as Glorfindel’s grip on his cock tightened, his ministrations becoming more rapid.

“ _Ar inyë tye-méla_ ,” Glorfindel said. “Until the Ending of Arda, I am yours.”

 _Until the Ending of Arda_. Glorfindel had intended this sentiment to voice his devotion for Gildor, to put into words the love he felt, if indeed it were possible to do so. Yet in the long, lonely years that followed this pronouncement, those words became an anchor to Gildor, a promise yet to be fulfilled, a love separated by land and sea and centuries between.

***

_The Year 1600 of the Second Age_  
_Lindon, Middle-earth_

Gildor Inglorion looked out at the grey sea, watching as the ship on the horizon grew ever nearer. It was not a Númenórean ship; that much he could tell from this distance, but that only made the mystery deepen as to who it could be.

“Could it have come up from the South?” Elrond posited, standing beside Gildor as he squinted against the light of the setting sun to view the ship more clearly. It was possible, Gildor thought, for the people of the South had learned the art of shipbuilding from Númenórean colonizers, and since then had, from time to time, sent ships full of emissaries and diplomats to Lindon for Gil-galad to meet with.

“That’s no ship of the Haradrim either,” Círdan said, hardly bothering to look up from the fishing net he was mending. “Honestly, haven’t you two better things to do than to stand around speculating on something we’ll find out the answer to soon enough?”

“You’re not even a little curious?” Elrond asked him.

“The only thing I’m curious about is why you’re still here,” Círdan grumbled. “Off with you now, I’m not in the mood for entertaining children today.”

Gildor grinned at Elrond wickedly and said, “Come along, Master Peredhil, let’s not bother this old Elf with anymore of our wonderings. You know how they confuse his ancient mind—” He’d barely gotten this sentence out before Círdan launched a few well-aimed rocks in their direction.

Laughing, they sped off down the beach, towards the docks where the ship would soon land. They slowed as they approached them, watching as the Falathrim were busily made ready for the ship’s arrival.

“Círdan’s right,” Elrond said, looking out across the bay again. “That’s no ship of the Haradrim either. It looks Elvish-made.”

It was true, Gildor agreed to himself. But not just Elvish-made. “Teleri-made,” he said. “That ship comes from the havens of the Olwë’s people in Valinor.

Elrond started at this. “Are you certain?”

“I could not easily forget the swanfleet of the Teleri.”

“If this is a messenger come from Valinor…” Elrond trailed off, frowning. Then without another word, he turned and ran back up the beach, towards the house of the king. Gildor, however, remained by the docks, waiting.

The ship drew closer, cutting through the waves with quick ease, and it was not long before he could make out a figure upon the decks of the boat, moving with grace as they brought the ship in to harborage. Without even realizing he was doing it, Gildor moved forward onto the main dock, walking down the length of it until he reached the end. His heart was pounding, though he scarcely understood why.

And then he saw him. The figure at the helm of the swan-ship turned towards him, close enough now for Gildor to make out his features: golden hair, flashing eyes, tall and young and unmarred by flames or battle or death…

Gildor couldn’t move, a sudden paralysis consuming him from head to toe. He couldn’t breathe. This could not be real. It must be a dream, some cruel dream come to taunt him in the night with the very thing he desired most in all the world…

The feeling of his knees hitting hard against the wood of the dock brought him to his senses. Glorfindel— _his_ Glorfindel—was sailing into port before his very eyes, and it was not a dream, not an illusion, not the trick of a lonely mind.

The ship pushed lightly against the dock as it came to a halt, and only then could Gildor convince himself to stand once more, climbing shakily to his feet to watch as the ship’s lone occupant leapt nimbly from the rails and onto the dock. Círdan’s people worked to secure the newcomer’s ship, as Glorfindel stared in expectation at his husband. And Gildor Inglorion stared back.

It seemed a thousand years more passed in that moment as they looked upon one another again, until at last Glorfindel spoke, his voice uncertain, almost shy: “Gildor, my…my love. You look well.”

When Gildor gave no answer, he stepped forward, carefully, a few slow steps before stopping again. “I…Gildor, I don’t know what to say. Can you forgive me?”

“You left me,” Gildor said, the words falling from his mouth like dead leaves from a tree. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

“I know,” Glorfindel said, so quietly Gildor almost missed it. “I’m sorry, my love, sorrier than I can say.” He took a few more steps towards him, so close he could almost touch him, but stopped again. “I never stopped loving you, all those years in Mandos, I never st—”

A few quick steps closed the gap between them as Gildor rushed forward, throwing his arms around him and kissing him hard on the mouth, stopping Glorfindel mid-word. Engrossed as he was with this unexpected and long-awaited reunion with his husband, Gildor still saw a few of the Elves on the dock giving the couple amused looks.

When at last they parted, Glorfindel’s eyes were shining with tears. “And you…you still love me?”

“You’re in my arms, aren’t you?” Gildor replied, and it felt suddenly as if no time at all had passed between them.

“I’m in your arms,” Glorfindel said, touching the side of Gildor’s face reverently as he leaned in to kiss him again.

“What happens now?” Gildor asked, resting his head against his lover’s shoulder. He saw from up the beach others coming down to the docks as news of Glorfindel’s return began to spread.

Glorfindel smiled, the same radiant smile that he’d always had. “We continue where we left off.”


End file.
